


When I See You Again

by arituzz



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 04:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8782558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arituzz/pseuds/arituzz
Summary: The irony of it all is that I’m already dead. No, the cruel joke is that I don’t die. And there are things much worse than death for me to expierence forever.





	

**Author's Note:**

> When the summary has the words dead, die and death... Well, you know where the things are going.  
> I was listening to Some Nights, by FUN.

_September 2035_

**BAZ**

There was a time when I could actually feel something.

At the beginning, during the months after you left, all I could feel was rage. It was all so fucking unfair. But, in retrospect, it was to expect. Since my whole life has always been a sick joke. I’d spent half my life pining for you and when my feelings were finally reciprocated, you had to go and fucking die.

The moment I knew you were gone, fuck, that moment I wanted to end it all. I went back to our apartment—after weeks sleeping next to you in the hospital—and set fire to it. I’d burn altogether with your memories. What a poetic way to go, you’d say, but I couldn’t care less about poetry. I just wanted to go. I still do, sometimes. Want to end it all. But no. You wouldn’t even let me die. You had to make sure Penelope and Micah looked after me after you died. That was your plan all along, right? To torment me in life _and_ in death.

After the rage, sadness struck in. I’d cry for days and nights straight. But I drowned it all in alcohol and cigarettes.

All that’s left now is numbness. I try to scream but not a sound leaves my mouth anymore. You were my life. You were the air in my lungs. And it’s gone.

Some nights I dream you’ve never left. You make fun of me for telling you I miss you, I take you into my arms and make love to you. But I still wake up, and dreams are just dreams. Painful reminders of what I can’t have. Of what I once had. I open my eyes and my life is still a shit and all that’s left of you is your smell on our pillow. Those days are the worst ones.

Most nights I don’t remember what I stand for anymore. What is the point of it all? Why can’t you just let me die? I gave you my heart and you squeezed it to emptiness, then threw it to the floor shattering it into a million pieces, and you ask me—no, force me—to live with it? To make it _work_?

Other nights I can’t take it any longer. Like today.

I down a bottle of vodka. I set up the record player with our song and I let myself slip away. I dance like you’re here with me. Except the air is heavy with your absence and it’s hard to breathe. I go to our bedroom and that’s where I’ll burn myself to death. Hopefully, Penelope and Micah won’t come back until tomorrow.

And that’s when I see you. Lying on the bed, as if a day hadn’t passed.

“Great, I’m hallucinating again.”

“Baz.” It’s the first time my hallucination talks back, though. “You’re a bloody mess.”

“What did you expect?” I want to hit you and hug you and yell at you and kiss you all at once. But it seems I’ve lost the ability to move at all.

“You could at least shave,” the hallucination says.

“What the fuck for?”

The imaginary-you approaches me and strokes my face. “You haven’t aged a day,” you say. Your hand is so cold but it makes me feel so warm.

“I’m a vampire, remember?” I say.

You make me sit onto the bed, by your side, and you laugh that genuine, goosebumping laugh of yours and I am struck. Dumbfounded. Because there’s no way my hallucination would do _that_.

“Simon?” My face is wet and I wonder how the rain has got through the window when I realise it’s not actually rain but tears. I’m crying. It’s been _years_ since I shed my last tear. I thought I didn’t have any more left. “Is that really you?”

“Of course, you idiot,” you say, drying the tears away from my face.

“But how?” People don’t return from that kind of death. Not even you. Unless…“Oh.” The Veil is lifting again.

“Yeah.”

“Your hair hasn’t grown back.”

“No. Turns out your hair doesn’t keep growing after dying. It’s a myth.”

You smile and our lips can’t resist the urge of crashing into each other anymore, and we collide in a hungry and desperate kiss. Fuck. It’s been _so fucking long_ since I last tasted your mouth I had almost forgotten you can take me to heaven and beyond with just a brush of your lips on my skin. And I hate it. Because the greater the joy, the deeper the sorrow that’s left for me to bear when you leave. And you’re already starting to fade. And I’m already starting to die again.

“Baz,” you say. Your voice is fading, too. “You’ll always be an unfinished issue for me. There’s no way i’ll ever be _done_ with you.”

“Please. No,” I mumble. “Don’t.”

“What I mean is that I’m not going anywhere. I’ll never give up on you,” you go on. Yeah, I know _exactly_ what you mean, but I just– I just can’t do it. “I’m asking you to do the same for me.”

“The pain is horrible. But the numbness is unbearable, Simon. You can’t be asking me that.” You gave me everything but it only lasted a heartbeat. “I don’t want a life without you,” I tell you. “This is not _life_.”

I’m sobbing but I don’t care.

“Don’t die,” you say, your voice so low it’s almost a whisper. “Let’s meet again in twenty years.”

You selfish bastard. You ask me to live twenty years in hell in exchange of two minutes in paradise. And then do it again. And again. And again. For fucking ever.

I hold you tight in my arms, in a desperate attempt to retain you by sheer power of will, but you keep fading until your presence is just a memory. A gut-wrenching memory that I have to endure for all my existence. For eternity. For you. And I will. Because you know I’d do _anything_ for you.

-FIN-

 

**Author's Note:**

> Blame the Carry On Countdown prompt ANGST if your heart is broken into tiny fucking pieces. So is mine :^)


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